Should Texas abolish the death penalty?

Some people think so after allegations that the state executed the wrong man years ago.

As the Houston Chronicle reported, “The Columbia Human Rights Law Review will devote its spring issue to a 400-page article asserting that the state convicted the wrong man, bypassing a potential suspect who had bragged of killing Wanda Lopez (in 1983). The critique is the latest in which death penalty opponents seek to prove that Texas, with 482 executions since 1982, killed an innocent man.

”Steve Schiwetz, who served as lead prosecutor at the executed man’s trial, has not read the journal article, but he disputed the authors’ conclusions as related by a reporter. ’These guys are crusaders,’ he said. “What can I say?’ ”